The Relateds

Speaking at the India Today Best Cities Awards, Union Minister for Urban Development Kamal Nath said that the lack of good infrastructure in Indian cities can only be fixed by a dedicated municipal staff. "Whenever I go to my own district for instance, I see a new municipal officer doesn't understand the problems of the area and cannot even prepare a proper project report. We have to train dedicated staff of municipal officers who will stay in that department and take development forward."

He said India is urbanising rapidly at an unprecedented scale and that its cities in the next decade were likely to house over 600 million people and account for 70 per cent of the county's GDP.

However, the minister pointed out that there is a huge urban infrastructure deficit. "In many cases growth had preceded infrastructure and the process of development in cities now is more a question of catching up with the past rather than building towards the future."

Rather than focus only on the big cities, Nath was keen to highlight the role of smaller municipalities pointing out that recent census figures showed that the migration of youth was more toward small towns than big cities. While the government had a successful track record in building rural infrastructure, Nath said urban infrastructure was still "in a pathetic condition."

He said the first exercise in evaluating infrastructure was with the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in 2005. The minister pointed that the most important lesson learnt from that first JNNURM was that the importance of having a dedicated municipal staff who would engage in city planning. "In most states rather than implementing steps for development the questions centered on whether we have people with the skills to compile detailed project reports and whether they understand the demands of their areas."

Speaking on an issue where he has been much quoted, Nath highlighted the importance of building housing for the economically weaker sections and for the service class. He cited the example of Delhi, which is now exploring the possibility of building high rise structures in some areas for EWS and Lower Income Groups who currently live in clusters of slums and unauthorised colonies around the city.

He also highlighted the importance of an integrated transport system given that most cities are expanding rapidly and are going through a process of suburbanisation. "In most major cities, developmental norms are linked with transport policies. We want to move people and not vehicles. The only way we can do that is with an integrated transport policy." Nath said that the Central government has over the last few years committed a lot of funds towards proper urban planning and for making plans that are city specific. "There is no one size that fits all. Each city needs its own plan but the one thing that we tell states is that if they require funds then they need to have a dedicated municipal service."

Inaugurating the event earlier, India Today Group Chairman Aroon Purie said cities were suffering in terms of infrastructure, like power and housing, because of politics.

"Politicians are more focused on rural areas because that's where the votes are. But they forget that cities account for 60 per cent of the country's GDP. Everyone here would agree that sometimes it is frustrating to be a city dweller and everyone would have their own horror stories about power cuts or being stuck in endless hours of traffic."